The BCCI has announced that Rahul Johri will be its first-ever chief executive officer. After spending two decades in the media industry, Johri will assume his new role on June 1.

Johri was the Asia Pacific’s executive vice-president and general manager for South Asia with Discovery Networks where he had been working for 15 years.

Korn Ferry, a Mumbai-based head-hunting firm, had been appointed by the BCCI to find the board a CEO, and Johri was chosen by the firm after a roughly four-month-long selection process.

“We welcome Rahul aboard and wish him luck for his new role at BCCI,” said Anurag Thakur, BCCI secretary, in a statement.

“In the past one year, the BCCI has undertaken various initiatives aimed towards transforming its working in order to make the functioning more robust. This endeavour is another initiative of the Board aimed in the same direction and will mark one more milestone towards strengthening the professional working of the BCCI.”

Johri, according to the BCCI statement, will report to the BCCI secretary.

Johri’s appointment is largely perceived as a fall-out of the Supreme Court-appointed Justice R.M. Lodha panel’s recommendations for administrative reforms in Indian cricket.

Pre-empting the Justice Lodha panel’s observations, the BCCI, in October last year, had launched a “Project Transformation” for reconstituting its administrative wing.

One of the key decisions made then was the appointment of a CEO and a Chief Financial Officer.

The Hindu understands that the process of appointing the CFO is in place and the CFO will be unveiled soon. Deloitte, the auditing giant, had been roped in to help BCCI scan candidates for both the posts.

In 2005, soon after taking over as the BCCI president, Sharad Pawar had appointed Tata Consultancy Services to suggest reforms.

The TCS report was the stepping stone for introducing administrative and developmental wings of the BCCI.

Ratnakar Shetty was appointed as the chief administrative officer while cricket operations and game development arms were set up soon afterwards.